


Muse of the Storm

by phoenixyfriend



Category: Girl Genius (Webcomic)
Genre: Decapitation, Gen, Transhumanism
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-05
Updated: 2019-07-20
Packaged: 2019-08-19 05:03:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 6,450
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16527905
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phoenixyfriend/pseuds/phoenixyfriend
Summary: Her name is Anevka.This is the most important thing.It is the first thing.It is not, however, theonlything.





	1. Her Name is Anevka

Her name is Anevka.

She is not the original Anevka. The original Anevka is dead. She knows this because the original Anevka’s little brother told her so.

But she is still Anevka. She has the memories. She has the emotions. She has the fondness and the rage.

She is Anevka, because there is nothing else she could be.

She is a head in a cupboard.

She still considers Tarvek her little brother. She can understand why he hurt her; she was trying to frame him just before, to kill a girl that she thinks he may have fallen for.

Her name is Anevka, and she waits.

She waits for a very long time.

o.o.o.o.o

Her name is Anevka and she has learned how to shut down her processes to save her own sanity, or at least what’s left of it.

She has been here for months. There are rarely enough people in the Castle for her to eavesdrop, and she cannot move. She learns to enter a stasis, unseeing and unfeeling, with only a drop of her processing devoted to her hearing, just in case.

Her name is Anevka, and she must remember that.

Someone shows up, eventually. She awakens to hear people rummaging through her Castle, and she can do nothing about it.

It is not her castle. The original Anevka could inherit, but she is dead. The Clank Anevka cannot inherit. It is not her castle. She feels responsible for it anyway.

Her name is Anevka, and the castle belongs to Anevka, now that Tarvek is missing. Isn’t that enough?

They find her. She doesn’t move, doesn’t give anyone a sign that she’s alive and awake. There is a man frowning down at her head. He mentions her brother. A woman calls the name Gil, and the man answers. He looks terrible, as though he hasn’t slept in months. Anevka wonders why.

He takes her with him, places her on Moxana’s board with Tinka’s head right next to her, and the three of them are placed together in a room on Castle Wulfenbach. Periodically, the young Baron will visit and attempt to fix Tinka’s body, to reattach her head. He mutters things as he works, and Anevka thinks he’s talking about Tarvek. The young Baron looks unwell. Anevka thinks she feels pity. She also feels envy. She wishes for a body again.

She can eavesdrop better here.

o.o.o.o.o

“I-I-I am p-p-p-proud,” Tinka says.

Anevka does not respond. She has not responded since they found her. It is better to pretend to be inactive. They underestimate her, then. The young Baron has said things around her that she doubts he’d be saying otherwise.

“The St-st-st-storm King-g-g-g di _iiiiiiiii_ d well,” Tinka manages. Moxana’s hand comes up and passes over Tinka’s wig, a motion meant to be soothing. Anevka doesn’t know how to feel about that. Irritated, maybe. “He-he-he is no Va _aaaaaaaaan_ Rijn, but-ut-ut you werrrrrrrre _beautiful-ful-ful_ , lit-lit-little cous _sssssss_ in. Little muse-muse-muse.”

“My name is Anevka,” she says. It is the most important thing.

“We-we-we are fami-mi-mily,” Tinka insists.

Moxana’s hand lands on Anevka’s head. She is… possessive? No. Protective.

“I am Anevka,” she says. She does not respond to Tinka again.

o.o.o.o.o

The young Baron comes to speak to Moxana sometimes. He has no skill interpreting her cards and games, and Tinka tries to help, but fails. Tinka keeps trying to talk to Anevka, but she doesn’t do too well at that, either.

Anevka is kept in a lab, and she _wishes_ she had the fingers to itch with a desire to do something with the tools she sees. She wishes she still had her Spark.

The young Baron says things, sometimes. He assures Moxana once that they are going to get Tarvek out of the time-stop. His choice to speak with the Muses is the only reason Anevka knows anything these days.

She rather hopes he succeeds. It’s probably too late for Anevka to save herself. She cares enough for Tarvek that, if she can’t sacrifice him to save her own life, she wants him to succeed. She wonders if that makes her a bad sister.

She thinks about how her father had been willing to sacrifice her for far less reason, and then pretended to mourn, and thinks that she might have felt sick, if she’d still had the ability.

Moxana’s hand runs down the back of her wig.

Anevka can feel things. She can speak. She cannot cry, or even frown. She cannot move. She cannot dance or kill or even go to the next room. She is helpless.

She wants her body back.

The human body would be nice, but the original Anevka is dead. She probably can’t be cloned, and while Anevka knows that Lucrezia Mongfish had created mind-transferring technology, as her father had so delightedly told her so very many times, Anevka rather doubts she’d be able to convince anyone to let her transfer into a clone of the body that had once been hers.

The clank body would do. It would do _wonderfully_. An upgraded face, perhaps, but _oh_ she’d adore the chance to just… have some control.

She’s lost control so very many times.

She wants it back.

o.o.o.o.o

“We’ve almost gotten to him,” the young Baron says. There’s a wild look in his eyes, gleaming and desperate and almost triumphant but too scared to admit it. “Tarvek. Your Storm King. We’ve nearly gotten to him, we’re so _close_.”

Moxana presents him with the Whirlwind. She rarely presents him with anything else these days. The young Baron rides a fine line of nearly destroying himself in search of something greater. Every risk he takes is massive. Every reward he attains is bigger still. Anevka wishes she had a better vantage point to see him achieve it.

But Tarvek.

Her little brother.

She is not the original Anevka, but she is still _Anevka_.

She has waited so very long.

Gilgamesh Wulfenbach stands and turns and heads for the door.

“Take me with you.”

He freezes. He turns. He stares at her with those wide, wild eyes that seem to stare right through her. He is weighing the danger.

“You sound like the Other.”

She still has most of Lucrezia’s voice. That’s unfortunate.

“Change the harmonics if you must,” Anevka says. It’s a concession she’s not happy to make, but she will. There are few sparks that could make a body she’d enjoy, and she’d not be able to control them anyway. “I am a head, Herr Baron. There is not much I could do to stop you.”

“How long have you been awake?” he asks, coming closer and picking her up. He holds her at eye level, staring evenly into her overlarge eyes.

“Since I heard you rummaging about my castle.”

His eyes narrow, and he glares at her. She’s fairly certain he’s running over the conversations he’s had with the Muses these past months to figure out what she’s heard. She doesn’t care.

“If you awaken my brother, I want to be there,” she says.

“There was…” he pauses, frowning, and then continues with a face full of distaste. “There was a clank woman in the Great Hospital, claiming to be Princess Anevka. I’d thought you were simply a prototype head, or that you’d upgraded at some point after Sturmvo—after Tarvek built the one with the better expressions.”

Anevka stays very still. She’s heard him mention that before, mostly offhand things about his father that he said while talking through his problems to Moxana.

Moxana holds out a card. Anevka sees it when Moxana flips it to face the Baron.

“The Thief,” he reads, and his frown doesn’t go away. “That would be… a lot of things.”

“Lucrezia,” Anevka says, and the card disappears. The answer is depressingly easy.

“Probably,” the Baron acknowledges. He lowers her head onto a nearby table, not as low as Moxana’s table, but still somewhere he doesn’t have to do the holding. “I don’t have time to build you an entire new body.”

“I wouldn’t trust you with it anyway,” Anevka dismisses. “I just want you to bring me with you. I want to see my brother again.”

“And?” the Baron prompts.

“And yell at him, maybe,” Anevka acknowledges. “He did turn off my head and shut me away in a cupboard.”

Gilgamesh Wulfenbach makes a face, and then grins through the pain and weariness on his face. “Honestly, I’d probably pay to see that. We’ll be blindfolding you. Maybe have to put you in a box again. Change those harmonics.”

“I’ll take it,” Anekva allows.

The Baron picks her up and does as he said, fiddling with her harmonics until she sounds less like Lucrezia and more like her old self. He holds her in one hand as he leaves the room afterwards, and only pauses as Tinka calls after them.

“Good-good-goodbye, little cous-cous-cous-cous-cousin!”

The Baron looks at Tinka and then at Anevka, and if Anevka could have shrugged, she still probably wouldn’t have, because she was a princess and princesses weren’t really supposed to _do_ that sort of thing, but she’d have had to stifle the urge a little.

“I am not a Muse,” she says. “I am, however… built on their lines. I am of them, even if I am not one of them. Not a sister, but…”

 “A cousin,” he finishes. “Yeah, I can see that. Well, let’s go find your brother.”

“Are you going to put me in a box?”

“You are far too clever and crafty for me to risk doing anything less.”

“Why Baron, you’re going to make me blush.”

“Funny. A real riot.”

“Mm, so I’ve been told.”


	2. Hello, Little Brother

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And thus we enter the time stop.

Her name is Anevka, and she has some control over her life for the first time in almost three years.

She is a head in a box, listening to the muffled noise of arguing voices and grinding machinery. She listens to a fight break out, and then suddenly her box is open.

Gilgamesh pulls her head out and hands her to someone.

“Here. You can hold the princess.”

Anevka gets held up by large hands to look at a large man who, as was only natural, had a large presence in stories across Europa.

“Good heavens,” Othar Tryggvassen says. “Which one?”

“Anevka Sturmvoraus,” Gilgamesh says. He sounds distracted. “She’s Prince Tarvek’s older sister.”

“I see,” Othar says. He sounds uncertain. “And, er… just how did she come to be in this state?”

“Her father was worse than mine,” Gilgamesh says. While true, Anevka feels that it isn’t very helpful.

“My father was a collaborator of Lucrezia Mongfish’s,” she says, and Othar startles. Ah. She supposes she _hadn’t_ moved until now. He must not have realized she was active. “He attempted to replace my mind with a copy of hers, as a means to return her to life. He failed, nearly killed me, and Tarvek built an entire _new_ clank body for me to control from within a catafalque.”

Othar still looks uncertain. “There is no catafalque here.”

Anevka wishes she could smile. “Yes, well, the original Anevka _did_ die, not that anyone _told_ me. I don’t think Tarvek told _anyone_ , really, and he only told me shortly before he locked away my head in a cupboard! Really, it was quite ruthless of him; he’s always been so _sentimental._ I’m quite angry at him, of course, but it was nice to see he’d taken to the family’s lessons as well as he did. He’s much less likely to die at the hands of an errant cousin this way, you know.”

Othar chances a glance at Gilgamesh, who rather seems to be enjoying this.

“If it helps, he didn’t tell me or lock me away until _after_ I tried to kill him,” Anevka offers, and then enjoys the play of emotions across Othar’s face.

“She wanted to come see him,” Gilgamesh says, casually and with just a glance over his shoulder. “So I brought her. Now, we’ve managed to extend corridors of real time into the city.”

He explains. Anevka lets herself be carried, listens and watches and pays as much attention as she can to every detail. It’s partly the reflexive desire to know everything and be sure that there isn’t a Smoke Knight lying in wait to kill her. It’s partly the awareness that knowledge is power, and every detail could help her regain control.

It’s partly the fact that seeing anything beyond the cupboard or Gilgamesh’s lab still feels fresh and new.

This desire to hear everything fades just as Othar declares that he’s made Tarvek his apprentice, because she can see her little brother.

There’s a knife in him, one of Martellus’s. A young man that Anevka doesn’t know is kneeling beside him, face filled with worry. They are stained red by the glass, but Anevka can still see the blood.

The rest of the world washes away.

Anevka is not ruled by sentiment. She prides herself on this, because it made killing her mother so much easier. Her father, too, and her parents had really been two sides of the same blasted, horrible coin.

But Anevka has no body. She has no title. She has no crown. Anevka can call herself a princess, but she lost that title when the original had died. By most interpretations, she was a wholly different person, and had never had the title in the first place.

She has nothing but the kindness of a madboy with a broken empire and his whims, the affection of Muses as incapable of movement as she is, and a head that can think faster than an organic one.

So sentiment will make no difference here. Sentiment had saved her, really, because Tarvek _could_ have just let the original die without doing anything. He _could_ have destroyed the clank’s head as soon as he’d shut her down. He could have done so many things that would have made his life so much easier, that would have been in line with how their family acted.

But Tarvek had had sentiment, and Anevka existed, even in this form, because of it.

She could afford a little sentiment right back.

She didn’t have much else to do.

She watched medical technicians bustling about, the doctors conferring, the young baron shouting orders.

They took the seneschal away, and Queen DuPree went with them.

They took down the time field down around Tarvek, and Anevka did not blink as he began to scream.

Anevka cannot move but to blink.

Tryggvassen holds her, with careful fingers for a man his size, and they watch.

Tryggvassen asks questions.

Anevka does not.

She does not speak, and she does not blink, and there is nothing else she can do to affect the world around her.

Tarvek stops screaming.

Gilgamesh accosts him, demands answers about the situation to test Tarvek’s state of mind that Tarvek, in turn, answers _wonderfully_ , and there’s even a hug at the end.

And then Gil gestures to Othar, and says, “I brought someone along.”

Tarvek freezes.

He trembles.

The people rush around them, but everything feels a little muffled, even with Anevka’s own perfect hearing telling her that it isn’t, because it feels like there is no one in the world save for the two of them.

Anevka knows he’s looking at her. His gaze is focused far too low to be paying attention to Tryggvassen.

Anevka is tired of waiting. Even just a few moments longer so Tarvek can come up with something to say feels like too long.

“Hello, little brother.”

He nearly startles out of his skin, and she can hear his breathing skyrocket as his face finally changes to show the medley of emotions he must be feeling. He even stumbles away from her.

She keeps talking, just four more words.

“It’s been a while.”


	3. All That is Left

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I am all that is left,” Anevka says. “I am the closest you have. A ghost in a shell, but that’s still more than most would have left.”
> 
> Tarvek shudders. He does not open his eyes.
> 
> “I am as good as,” Anevka says. She’s… she’s not sure why she needs this. She needs a body, definitely, but she wants this. She needs this for deeper reasons.

Tarvek’s head snaps around to look at Wulfenbach, and he demands, “Why the hell did you bring her here?!”

“She asked,” Gilgamesh says, his voice even in a way that Anevka suspects is formulated specifically to annoy Tarvek. “What, aren’t you happy to see your sister?”

“She’s not—” Tarvek starts, and then cuts himself off, eyes squeezing shut and refusing to look at anyone. He doesn’t finish the statement.

“I am all that is left,” Anevka says. “I am the closest you have. A ghost in a shell, but that’s still more than most would have left.”

Tarvek shudders. He does not open his eyes.

“I am as good as,” Anevka says. She’s… she’s not sure why she needs this. She needs a body, definitely, but she _wants_ this. She needs this for deeper reasons.

(Part of her hates admitting to sentiment.)

(Part of her is desperate for it.)

(She hates both parts, and everything they represent about her.)

“I killed you,” Tarvek says. He doesn’t look up. “I shut you down. You weren’t supposed to wake up again.”

“Whyever not?” Tryggvassen demands, before Anevka or Gilgamesh can say a word.

“Because she’s a remorseless murderer who planned to frame me for every last thing in Sturmhalten, and wanted to torture Agatha just to hear her scream,” Tarvek says, finally opening his eyes, if only to glare at Tryggvassen. “Because I loved my sister, I did, but she was the most dangerous woman I’ve ever met, and the epitome of every monstrous thing my family has ever tried to teach its children.”

“Flatterer,” Anevka says, ignoring the twist of emotion that, once upon a time, she might have said was in her stomach. It’s not a _good_ emotion.

“Oh,” Tryggvassen says. His voice is smaller than Anevka’s heard it. He’s surprised. He should be.

Gilgamesh isn’t. “So she’s basically Bang with better taste in booze and clothes.”

“Bangladesh DuPree answers to your father,” Tarvek snaps. “Anevka answered to no one.”

“I’m a head,” Anevka reminds him. “And you had the commands to stop me if I ever went too far.”

Tarvek’s face contorts for a moment. There’s a distant noise of drills. Anevka ignores them. She’s fairly certain the Wulfenbach forces will move if they need to.

“I _am_ sorry about that,” he says quietly. “But you were too dangerous to leave running about.”

“And Lucrezia wasn’t?” Gilgamesh asks, so quietly that Anevka isn’t sure anyone heard him except herself.

“I would have done the same,” Anevka says, which is really all the two of them need. They’re of the Valois, and that means they’re always going to be dangerous, especially to each other. Emergency backup plans are ugly, but necessary.

“She wasn’t asleep,” Gilgamesh says, in the silence that follows. “She was in stasis, sometimes, but it was all by her own choice. I didn’t _know_ she was awake until yesterday.”

“I’m a _head_ ,” Anevka repeats. “There’s very little for me to do but listen, these days. Better to seem a curiosity to be later examined than for the sleepless wonder here to decide I’m better off dismantled for parts.”

“Hey!” Gilgamesh snaps. Whether he’s angry about the comment on his sleep schedule or the implication that he’d take her apart is anyone’s guess. It’s probably both.

“Hey nerds!”

Bangladesh DuPree jumps in with a giddy yell, but there’s something uncomfortably wan about her face. Anevka’s fairly certain the woman has been sleeping about as much as Gilgamesh has.

“What do you want, Bang?”

“We gotta get going,” DuPree says, jabbing a thumb over her shoulder. “Those guys attacking the perimeter are getting close. Come on!”

Anevka goes back in the box.

Tarvek meets her eyes as they lower her in, none too gentle, and his expression is desperate behind the exhaustion and pain. It’s subtle, but she is his sister.

She is Valois.

She knows him.

And she’s just as desperate as he is.

o.o.o.o.o

They take her out sooner than she expects, and this time she’s in the arms of a young man with a shock of blonde hair that stands out specifically due to the fact that the rest is black. She wonders idly if he dyes it.

“Hello, Madam,” he says. He looks a little unsure about talking to her. “I am Vanamonde Von Mekkhan. I’ve been told you are Princess Anevka?”

“What’s left of her,” Anevka says. Herr Von Mekkhan hesitates, and then nods.

“I was told that you were visiting our hospital during the siege of the town, but that was most likely incorrect, then,” he says.

Anevka blinks at him. The motion makes a clicking noise. “I suppose you can pin the blame for _that_ on my brother.”

Tarvek turns to look at her, away from the statues everyone’s been marveling at, and scowls. “What’s my fault _this_ time?”

“There was another me,” Anevka says, and his expression sours further.

“We still don’t have an explanation for that,” Gilgamesh says. He looks at Tarvek. “I’m guessing your sister isn’t wrong to say you had something to do with it?”

Tarvek glares at him. “There was a lot going on.”

“That’s not an explanation,” Gilgamesh says. He runs a hand through his hair, frustrated. “We don’t even know where she _is._ ”

Ever so slowly, one of the doctors raises his hand.

Anevka blinks with a click.

Gilgamesh turns to look as everyone else does, and then sighs with ill-disguised irritation. “Doctor Rothfuss.”

“Baron,” Rothfuss says. He looks nervous. He should be nervous. “We actually… _do_ know where she is. Sir.”

Gil closed his eyes and breathed deep. “Doctor Rothfuss, why was I not told that the other Anevka is inside the timestop?”

“She wasn’t on the list of individuals you wanted found,” Rothfuss says. “And her face, the one you have right now, is less expressive, and we all realized she was a clank, so I just assumed you’d found the prototype and already knew about the version trapped inside.”

“You met her?”

“Er, yes, Herr Baron.”

“You remember how she acted? You can remember the things she did in regards to my father?”

“Yes, I think so. It’s been almost three years, but I think so.”

“Right,” Gilgamesh says. His voice is very deliberate. “I’ll expect a full report from you later on what you remember about that Anevka. In the meantime, _Sturmvoraus, what did you do?”_

The explanation that follows, Anevka finds, angers her more than being shut down had.

o.o.o.o.o

“They’re beautiful,” Von Mekkhan says, looking down at Tinka and Moxana. “Delicate, but so… clean. Elegant.”

“He-He-He-Hello, c/c/c/c/c/cousi _iiiiiiiiiin_ ,” Tinka manages.

“Hello, Tinka,” Anevka says. She feels pity. It’s unpleasant.

“Cousin?” Von Mekkhan asks.

“My prosthetic body was based on Tinka’s, so the muses, at least these two, consider me a cousin,” Anevka explains. “You can put me down on Moxana’s table.”

“You don’t want someone to talk to?” Von Mekkhan asks, looking at Tinka and Moxana dubiously. That’s fair. Moxana can’t speak, and Tinka just displayed her own difficulties. “I know your brother’s busy recovering, but surely someone?”

Anevka blinks at him as he sets her down on Moxana’s table. “I have spent the past three years silent and waiting. I can wait a little longer.”

“That seems boring,” Von Mekkhan says. He hesitates, and then pulls a chair over and takes a seat straddling it, crossing his arms over the back and resting his chin on it. Seems he’s staying. “Say, do you know if they keep any coffee around this ship?”

“Yes,” Anevka says. She’s certainly seen Gilgamesh with enough. “I don’t know where.”

“I’ll find it,” Von Mekkhan says. His fingers tap against the chair back, soft but staccato. “Is there anything you’ve been dying to say the past few years?”

“Nothing I haven’t already said to Tarvek,” Anevka says. She wants him to leave. She wants him to stay. This is frustrating.

“What can you tell me about Sturmhalten’s approach to coffee?”

“I prefer tea.”

Von Mekkhan actually laughs. “Alright, then. Tourism?”

“…tourism?”

“Indulge me.”

“…we mostly advertised off the power of the history of Sturmhalten, short as it was, in regards to the Shining Coalition,” Anevka says, picking every word carefully. “And we were a trading center, so we had some minor tourism from slightly nearer, people who could afford to ride a cart in once every few months for a delicacy or two.”

“Like the candied fish?” Von Mekkhan prompts.

Anevka blinks at him. She wishes she could make more of an expression than that. “Among other things. Why do you want to know?”

“I feel like you deserve an interesting conversation, and I like brainstorming about how to promote Mechanicsburg’s tourist industry,” Von Mekkhan says. “Two birds, one stone.”

“I was a princess,” Anevka reminds him. “Backroom deals and poison, alliances for wars, not… tourism. Economics in general, perhaps, but the tourism was left to other administrators.”

“You still lived there,” Von Mekkhan points out. “And as lady of the household, you were expected to learn to manage the finances, yes?”

“I didn’t even enter a kitchen until after I died,” Anevka says flatly.

“Kitchens aren’t the face of tourism,” Von Mekkhan points out.

“You are insufferable,” Anevka says. She considers sighing, but it’s a much more intentional noise when one isn’t organic. “Tarvek came back from Paris talking about something called a snow globe. We were considering developing some with a stylized version of Sturmhalten inside, focusing on our castle, the lightning moat, and the external ramparts.”

“Tell me about snow globes,” Von Mekkhan says. “I’ve heard of them before, but not in detail.”

Anevka rolls her eyes, even though she knows the effect is different with how her eyes are in this… head.

She talks to him anyway.

o.o.o.o.o

She does not sleep, but she does enter stasis. Moxana combs her new wig in an approximation of what a mother might do for a child to help them relax. It’s nice.

o.o.o.o.o

She wakes to the news that Tarvek has been kidnapped.

It is not the first time she has heard this news in her life, not with her family being the way it is.

Anevka greatly suspects this is far from the last.

She can do nothing.

(She can’t apologize to him. She can’t ask for an apology in turn. She can’t work on fixing things in the only relationship she has that’s still worth saving. She can’t save him. She can’t even save herself.)

(She can do _nothing.)_


	4. There is Another

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anevka has a friend! Kind of.

Anevka gets occasional visitors. Nobody seems to have any information on her brother, and she snaps at anyone that tries to ask for permission to examine her.

“We have an idea,” Vanamonde says one day, stopping in with what seems to be an ever-present cup of coffee. She understands better, now, why he’d asked about that first.

“We?” Anevka asks.

“Rothfuss and I,” he says. “How well do you understand your own systems?”

“Not as well as Tarvek, but I knew enough to handle at least some of my own maintenance,” Anevka says. “You’d really need him, if you wanted to recreate my body.”

“Not recreate,” Vanamonde says. “The other Anevka, the one that’s actually Lucrezia, she’s still in the timestop. It’s possible to extract her.”

“Absolutely not,” Anevka says. “She’s far too dangerous.”

“That’s why we bring Othar,” Vanamonde says. “Or, honestly, drop only _part of_ the time field, or remove the head while it’s still in the time stop and then only introduce the body itself to real time, and leave her head…”

“In a box?” Anevka suggests.

Vanamonde shrugs, giving her a weak smile. “Or simply destroy it.”

“Why would you go through that trouble?” Anevka asks.

“They’re already going through the trouble of removing plenty of people,” Vanamonde said. “You… they think making you mobile would be useful. You’ve already told everything you’re willing to share on the Geisters and their culture, and your only remaining stake in the game is tied to finding and saving your brother. It doesn’t make you predictable, but… well. It’s not like you have much else to do.”

“You want to use me,” Anevka surmises.

“The Wulfenbach Empire does,” Vanamonde clarifies. “I’m just the messenger.”

“Why you?”

“You don’t insult me as much as the others.”

“You flatter yourself.”

“For good reason,” Vanamonde says, startling a laugh out of her.

Anevka wishes she could move. Her face isn’t expressive enough to really help with communication, and she can’t rely on body language without a body.

She also can’t blush anymore, which is probably one of the biggest plus sides to not being human. As much as the Valois value politics and subterfuge, nobody has _quite_ managed to get rid of the blushing, Mongfish help or no. Where the red hair comes up, so does the unfortunate tendency to flood one’s cheeks with blood and show off just how little control one has over one’s embarrassment.

The exception seems to be Martellus, the utter _ass._

“I do not expect,” Anevka says, as carefully as she can manage, “That you will have an easy or manageable time reattaching me. The connections are delicate.”

“There have been people studying Tinka in an attempt to repair her for years, right? Since you were brought here from Sturmhalten.”

“Idly, and even that was mostly the young Baron,” Anevka says. “And while I was based on her, I am _not_ built exactly the same way.”

“You were also much, _much_ more carefully removed,” Vanamonde points out.

“Can you promise to remove Lucrezia as carefully as Tarvek removed me?” Anevka asks.

(She wants to give in.)

(She didn’t like her metal body much, but she craves it now.)

(Anything is better than nothing.)

“That… is probably not possible,” Vanamond admits. “But we have a few experts who are only slightly less skilled than your brother, we have people ready to shoot if there is truly need, we have Othar Tryggvassen, and we have _you.”_

“What was that one in the middle?”

“People ready to shoot?”

“That isn’t what I meant and you know it.”

Vanamonde shrugs. “He’s useful.”

“He’s absurd.”

“He’s a Spark and as you said yourself, the only existing Spark wasp was used on the Baron,” Vanamonde says. “He’s also a very, _very_ skilled hero. If something goes wrong and Lucrezia needs to be destroyed and the rest of the team can’t be trusted, we can rely on him to solve the problem.”

“He’s loud.”

“Being loud doesn’t disqualify him from being competent at what he does,” Vanamonde says. He makes a face. “If it did, the Jägers and Old Heterodynes would have had a much harder time of accomplishing as much as they did.”

“I don’t like him.”

“You don’t have to.”

Anevka blinks, because that’s pretty much the only change to her impression she’s capable of, and wishes she could tilt her head.

“Princess Anevka,” Vanamonde says, like it’s a title she still has any right to, and not something she lost with her life. “Would you like to have a body again?”

Anevka blinks slowly at him from her position on Moxana’s table.

“Alright,” she says, and then follows up with a qualifier. “But I did hear from the young Baron that Madame Otilia is somewhere inside. I’m sure the girls would love to have their sister back.”

There’s a soft whirr from behind her, something quiet and deep from within Moxana’s chest. Tinka isn’t silent either, but her speaker has been having difficulty today; they hear little more than static.

“We’ll look into it,” Vanamonde agrees. He picks her head up. “Now, let’s go speak with Doctor Rothfuss.”


	5. All the Baron's Men (and Othar)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Had to Put Anevka Together Again
> 
> Also Van is here.

Anevka isn’t there for the extraction of her body and Lucrezia’s head. She remains with the Muses, as she has for ages, and waits for the team to get back. Moxana sets up a chess game to pass the time, and Anevka dictates her moves so Moxana can perform them.

“Knight to E4,” she says, wishing she had another option. She can still talk, she comforts herself. She’ll have a body again soon, even if it’s going to be unyielding metal. She hadn’t lost everything.

Just most things.

Moxana makes her own move, and Anevka watches the board. The move is an odd choice, and she’s not entirely sure why Moxana chose to make it.

Anevka tries to figure out where Moxana’s going with this, to at least _attempt_ to plan around her, but her mind drifts.

“Do you consider yourself alive?” Anevka asks.

Moxana blinks at her.

“We d/d/d/do,” Tinka says.

“Am I alive?” Anevka asks.

Tinka is silent.

Moxana’s hands flash over the chess set, swapping it out for the green felt of her tarot desk.

_The Chrysalis._

_The Looking Glass._

_The Summer Pine._

There are too many options for interpretation, really, but…

“An in-between place?” Anevka asks. “Not quite living, not quite dead?”

Moxana taps the Chrysalis card.

Anevka blinks slowly. “And becoming something new.”

Moxana holds up The Looking Glass, then flips it over to reveal The Device.

“A duplicate… no,” Anevka would shake her head if she could. “A derivative, in this case. I’m a copy of the original Anevka, and of the Muses, but not quite a mirror image.”

Moxana flipped it again, showing The Thief.

“And Lucrezia using my body… a copy of me, a copy of the original Lucrezia, and a copy of the Muses, all,” Anevka decided. “I’m not dead, I’m not alive, I’m not _stagnant_ , and I’m not unique.”

“Not a-a-a-a-alone,” Tinka corrected.

“…I’m not alone,” Anevka agreed.

o.o.o.o.o

They bring her body in, headless and heavy and a little horrifying to look at.

That’s her.

That is, effectively, her body.

It’s metal and lightning, gears and power and the kind of delicate machinery almost no one short of her brother can really tinker with effectively, and it’s not the one she was born with or even flesh at all, but she’s not the _Anevka_ that was born twenty-seven years ago either.

She was flesh and bone once. Skin and hair and sinew. Muscle and blood.

She had a soul.

She isn’t any of that anymore, and whether she has a soul is something she can _really_ only laugh at. It’s better not to think about that one. Better to pretend she doesn’t believe in souls at all.

“Lucrezia?” She asks.

Vanamonde stands back and directs the technicians and Othar, for the most part, but he glances at her. “Still in the timestop itself. We decided it was too risky to attempt to remove her. We may destroy her in case someone tries to remove her for her _own_ sake rather than as a tool for those who’d see the Other’s machines destroyed.”

“You’re in charge now?”

“Well,” Vanamonde said. “Without the Heterodyne or any jagergenerals to turn to, it’s the Seneschal that runs the town. I’m effectively the man that Mechanicsburg turns to, and you’re in our airspace and vicinity, tunneling into our town…”

 _“I’ve_ done none of that,” Anevka sniffs. “I can only speak and blink.”

 “You know what I mean,” Vanamonde sighed. “I’m not in charge, but I’ve got influence. People know Mechanicsburg listens to me, and Wulfenbach is willing to respect that. I’m not in charge of _everything_ , but I’m in charge of _enough.”_

“It’s true!” Othar boomed, slinging an arm around Vanamonde’s side and crushing him in a side hug. “Why, this young man is so loyal to the young Lady Heterodyne that he cried tears of joy upon the sight of her statues in this valley!”

Anevka blinked at him. “Is that so.”

Othar didn’t seem affected by blank tone. “Indeed! And he’s even agreed to allow me to aid the good doctors in reattaching you to your body!”

Anevka made a noise that wasn’t quite a shriek, but did have a marked resemblance to gears that had not been made with each other in mind. “Absolutely not, you _oaf!”_

Vanamonde managed to detach himself from Othar’s side. He brushed himself off with a grumble. “Despite his demeanor, Princess, he _is_ a Spark of respected caliber. He’s surprisingly good with delicate machinery, and… well, we could use his help, here. Most of the truly powerful sparks are busy with the time bubble or running off to Paris. If you want a body again, we need him.”

Anevka stews in motionless silence for a long minute, enough for Vanamonde to start looking worried and wave a hand in front of her face.

“I’m _fine,”_ she snaps. “Very well, I’ll accept Tryggvassen assisting, but if I end up like Tinka, you are _shutting me off_ until my brother returns.”

“You have my word,” Vanamonde says.

“The word of a Mechanicsburger means nothing to me,” Anevka tells him.

“Well,” Vanamonde says, grinning in a way she doesn’t particularly dislike. “I’ll take that as a compliment, and say that the word of the House of Valois means nothing to me, either.”

Anevka laughs at that. It’s apt. She enjoys the joke.

Othar claps, and the wave of air sends a vibration through what is left of her sensors. “So! Let us begin! We shall save the Princess from the cruel position her father left her in posthaste!”

Anevka blinks at him, and slides her eyes up to look at Vanamonde again. Quietly, she asks, “Does he realize I was the villain in the Lady Heterodyne’s story?”

“Let’s not make him change his mind,” Vanamonde says. “But I haven’t forgotten, don’t you worry.”

“And you don’t hold it against me?” Anevka asks. “How… courteous.”

“Your brother was a villain to her as well, and so was young Wulfenbach,” Vanamonde says. He shrugs. “It happens. People move on. For now, you don’t seem to have a reason to go after her, and you’ve been entertaining to speak with. We’ll figure it out as we go along.”

“And if I kill you the moment I have a body again?” Anevka asks idly.

“Then I suppose I’ll let someone else do the figuring out,” Vanamonde says. “Probably Tryggvassen, if I’m honest.”

“Hmph,” Anevka says, as her head is picked up by one of the lab assistants and carried to the mechanika-operata table. “Do try to get Lucrezia’s head out in one piece, or at least wait until Tarvek returns. I rather like the idea of being able to make more than one expression.”

“Will do, Princess,” Vanamonde promises. He grabs a coffee and takes a seat, and then Anevka’s head is facing up on the table and she can’t see him anymore.

The games of screws and pliers begins.

**Author's Note:**

> I should be working on NaNo but instead I just had feelings about a murderous robolady so here we are I guess.


End file.
